Midnight Thief by Livia Blackburne

Growing up on Forge’s streets has taught Kyra how to stretch a coin. And when that’s not enough, her uncanny ability to scale walls and bypass guards helps her take what she needs. But when the leader of the Assassins Guild offers Kyra a lucrative job, she hesitates. She knows how to get by on her own, and she’s not sure she wants to play by his rules. But he’s persistent—and darkly attractive—and Kyra can’t quite resist his pull.

Tristam of Brancel is a young Palace knight on a mission. After his best friend is brutally murdered by Demon Riders, a clan of vicious warriors who ride bloodthirsty wildcats, Tristam vows to take them down. But as his investigation deepens, he finds his efforts thwarted by a talented thief, one who sneaks past Palace defenses with uncanny ease.

When a fateful raid throws Kyra and Tristam together, the two enemies realize that their best chance at survival—and vengeance—might be to join forces. And as their loyalties are tested to the breaking point, they learn a startling secret about Kyra’s past that threatens to reshape both their lives.

My Review:

Here’s the thing: I really wanted to like Midnight Thief. I honestly did. High fantasy is one of my favorite genres and when high fantasy is done right the books came be downright genius. My problem with Midnight Thief is that while it was high fantasy, it almost seemed more like a middle grade fantasy book. It didn’t scream YA or adult or anything in between. No, it read as MG, and I had a big problem with that.

Another problem with Midnight Thief was that it just lacked almost all of the components that you can find in excellent high fantasy books. There weren’t a lot of details and scenery and there was nothing that drew me into the book. Also, there really wasn’t anything that special about any of the characters. It was just kind of flat.

I don’t want you to read this review and leave thinking that Midnight Thief is a bad book, because it’s not. The writing itself is good. However, it just screams middle grade and I think that’s going to be damaging when it’s being labeled as high fantasy. Let’s face it, middle grade doesn’t really have high fantasy. When I think of high fantasy, I think of the Hobbit, the Throne of Glass series, The Wheel of Time series, etc. Midnight Thief isn’t even comparable to those titles.

Fans of the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J Maas might experience the same confusion that I did while reading Midnight Thief. While they are obviously two different books with two different plots, I kept finding myself confused about this teenage girl who was working for assassins and kept going to a palace. Not to mention that both of the books are labeled as high fantasy. In my personal opinion, Midnight Thief got a little too close and personal with the Throne of Glass series. They were just a little too similar. I don’t know if everyone is going to have this issue while reading it, but I definitely did.

Overall, Midnight Thief is probably a book that I would recommend to my 4th and 5th graders and recommend that adult high fantasy lovers maybe avoid. That being said, I didn’t finish this whole book. Everyone needs to know that before they take my review to heart. I only got about 90 pages into it (I know, I know, I broke my 100 page high fantasy rule!) It just wasn’t working out for me.